Everything about Ric Rohmer totally explained
Éric Rohmer (born
Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer,
April 4,
1920,
Tulle,
France) is a French
film director and
screenwriter. He is regarded as a key figure in the post-war
New Wave cinema and is a former editor of influential French film journal
Cahiers du cinéma.
Scherer fashioned his pseudonym from the names of two famous artists: actor and director
Erich von Stroheim and writer
Sax Rohmer, author of the
Fu Manchu series.
Rohmer was the last of the
French New Wave directors to become established. He worked as the editor of the
Cahiers du cinéma periodical from 1957 to 1963, while most of his
Cahiers colleagues, among them
Jean-Luc Godard and
François Truffaut, were making their names in international cinema.
Biography
Early career
His beginnings as a film director were halting. He didn't complete his first feature,
Le signe du lion until 1959, and it received little notice.
With his cycle of films entitled
Six Moral Tales, his career began to take off. The first,
La boulangère de Monceau lasts 20 minutes, the second 60 minutes, and the rest are feature-length. Each tale follows the same basic story, inspired by
F.W. Murnau's
Sunrise — a man, married or otherwise committed to a woman, is tempted by a second woman, but resists the temptation. It was the third in the series (but the fourth to be filmed),
Ma nuit chez Maud (1969) that brought international recognition. The following film,
Le genou de Claire, secured that recognition.
Later professional life
Rohmer's films invariably concentrate on intelligent, articulate protagonists, who nevertheless frequently fail to own up to their real desires. The contrast between what they say and what they do fuels much of the drama in his films.
Following the
Moral Tales, Rohmer made two period films —
Die Marquise von O... (1976), from a novella by
Heinrich von Kleist, and
Perceval le Gallois (1978), based on a 12th century manuscript by
Chrétien de Troyes. Rohmer is a highly literary man. His films frequently refer to ideas and themes in plays and novels, such as references to
Jules Verne (in
The Green Ray),
Shakespeare (in
A Winter's Tale) and
Pascal's Wager (in
Ma nuit chez Maud).
Rohmer then embarked on a second series, the
Comedies and Proverbs, each based on a different proverb. He followed these with a third series in the 1990s:
Tales of the Four Seasons. Recently Rohmer, well into his 80s, has turned once again to period drama with
The Lady And The Duke and
Triple Agent.
The Lady And The Duke caused considerable controversy in France, where its negative portrayal of the
French Revolution led some critics to label it pro-
monarchist propaganda. Its innovative cinematic style and strong acting performances led it to be well-received elsewhere.
Rohmer's style
Rohmer possesses an idiosyncratic style that makes his films sound and look distinctly different from that of other directors. He doesn't use the full-face closeup, contending it's an artificial cinematic device that doesn't reflect how we see each other in reality. He avoids non-diegetic music, seeing it as a violation of the fourth wall. He has on occasion, however, departed from this rule; for example, inserting soundtrack music in places in
The Green Ray (1986). Rohmer also tends to spend considerable time in his films showing his characters going from place to place, walking, driving, bicycling, or commuting on a train, engaging the viewer in the idea that part of the day of each individual involves quotidian travel. This was most evident in
Le Beau mariage (1982), which had the female protagonist constantly traveling, particularly between Paris and Le Mans.
Rohmer typically populates his movies with people in their twenties, and the settings are often on beautiful seacoast beaches and resorts, notably in
La Collectionneuse (1967),
Pauline at the Beach (1983),
The Green Ray (1986), and
A Summer's Tale (1996). These films are immersed in an environment of bright sunlight, clear blue skies, green grass, sandy beaches, and clear waters.
What is most distinctive about the director is that he's his characters engage in long conversations—mostly talking about man-woman relationships, but also on mundane issues like trying to find a vacation spot. And there are also occasional digressions by the characters on literary and philosophical issues, as most of Rohmer's characters are middle class and university educated.
Perhaps the most Rohmerian of all the films is
A Summer's Tale (1996), which has most of the elements of a typical Rohmer film: no soundtrack music, no closeups, a seaside resort, long conversations between beautiful young people (who are middle class and educated) and discussions involving the characters' interests from songwriting to ethnology.
Awards & Nominations
The
Venice Film Festival awarded Éric Rohmer the
Career Golden Lion in 2001.
Filmography
Feature films
Contes moraux (Six Moral Tales):
1963 #1 La Boulangère de Monceau (The Bakery Girl of Monceau) — short, not released theatrically
1963 #2 La Carrière de Suzanne (Suzanne's Career) — short, not released theatrically
1967 #4 La Collectionneuse (The Collector)
1969 #3 Ma nuit chez Maud (My Night at Maud's) — although planned as the third moral tale, its production was delayed due to the unavailability of actor Jean-Louis Trintignant. It was released after the fourth tale.
1970 #5 Le Genou de Claire (Claire's Knee)
1972 #6 L'Amour l'après-midi (Love in the Afternoon/Chloe in the Afternoon)
Comédies et Proverbes (Comedies and Proverbs):
1980 La Femme de l'aviateur (The Aviator's Wife) — "It is impossible to think about nothing."
1982 Le Beau mariage (A Good Marriage) — "Can anyone refrain from building castles in Spain?"
1983 Pauline à la plage (Pauline At The Beach) — "He who talks too much will hurt himself."
1984 Les Nuits de la pleine lune (Full Moon In Paris) — "He who has two women loses his soul, he who has two houses loses his mind."
1986 Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray/Summer) — "Ah, for the days/that set our hearts ablaze,"
1987 L'Ami de mon amie (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend/Boyfriends And Girlfriends) — "My friends' friends are my friends."
Contes des quatre saisons (Tales of the Four Seasons):
1990 Conte de printemps (A Tale Of Springtime)
1992 Conte d'hiver (A Winter's Tale/A Tale of Winter)
1996 Conte d'été (A Summer's Tale)
1998 Conte d'automne (Autumn Tale)
Non-series
1959 Le Signe du lion
1976 La Marquise d'O... (The Marquise of O...)
1978 Perceval le Gallois
1987 Quatre Aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle (Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle)
1993 L'Arbre, le maire et la médiathèque (The Tree, The Mayor, and the Mediatheque)
1995 Les Rendez-vous de Paris (Rendezvous in Paris)
2000 L'Anglaise et le duc (The Lady And The Duke)
2004 Triple Agent
2007 Les Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon
Short films
1950 Journal d'un scélérat
1951 Présentation ou Charlotte et son steak
1952 Les Petites filles modèles (unfinished)
1954 Bérénice
1956 La Sonate à Kreutzer
1958 Véronique et son cancre
1964 Nadja à Paris
1965 "Place de l'étoile" from Paris vu Par... (Six in Paris)
1966 Une Étudiante d'aujourd'hui
1983 Loup y es-tu? (Wolf, Are You There?)
1986 Bois ton café (Drink your coffee it's getting cold!) (music video])
1997 Fermière à Montfaucon
1997 Un dentiste exemplaire
1999 Une histoire qui se dessine
2004 Le canapé rouge
Works for theatre
1979 Catherine de Heilbronn
1987 Le trio en si bémol
Works for television
Episodes for En profil dans le texte
1963 Paysages urbains
1964
1964
1964 Les salons de Diderot
1964 Perceval ou le conte du Graal
1965 Don Quichotte de Cervantes
1965 Les histoires extraordinaires d'Edgar Poe
1965 Les caractères de La Bruyère
1965 Entretien sur Pascal
1966 Victor Hugo, les contemplations
1968 Entretien avec Mallarmé
1968 Nancy au XVIIIe siècle
1969 Victor Hugo architecte
1969 La sorcière de Michelet
1969 Le béton dans la ville
1970 Le français langue vivante?
Episodes for Cinéastes de notre temps
1965 Carl Th. Dreyer
1966 Le celluloïd et le marbre
Episodes for Aller au cinéma
1968 Post-face à l'Atalante
1968 Louis Lumière
1968 Post-face à Boudu sauvé des eaux
Ville nouvelle (1975, four-part miniseries)
Épisode 1: L'enfance d'une ville
Épisode 2: La diversité du paysage urbain
Épisode 3: La forme de la ville
Épisode 4: Le logement à la demande
Episode for Histoire de la vie privée
1989 Les Jeux de société
non-series
1967 L'homme et la machine
1967 L'homme et les images
1968 L'homme et les frontières
1968 L'homme et les gouvernementsFurther Information
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